Sahil called me on a Tuesday morning. His voice was low. His friend had transferred fifty-five thousand rupees to a fake job portal the previous evening and was sitting in front of the computer not knowing what to do next.
Call 1930, I told him. Right now. While we are talking. Use another phone.
That number is India national cybercrime helpline. The first thing they ask for is the transaction reference number the sixteen-digit or eighteen-digit number that appears in the SMS your bank sends the moment a transfer goes out. That reference number is what investigators use to find exactly which account received the money.
If the call happens within two hours of the fraud, investigators can request an emergency hold on that receiving account. The thief has not been to an ATM yet. The money is still sitting there. This works more often than people think.
Sahil’s friend found the SMS, got the reference number, called 1930. He waited. Two days later he got a message that said forty-two thousand of the fifty-five had been frozen and would be refunded to him after the case verification process.
Not everything. But forty-two thousand out of fifty-five is not nothing.
After 1930, go to cybercrime.gov.in and file a written complaint. You need that complaint number for the bank chargeback process and for any insurance claim.
Then call your own bank fraud helpline and tell them the transaction was unauthorized.
Install CYBX. Built by 63SATS, the app includes embedded cyber insurance that creates a recovery path even when the money cannot be retrieved through the police channel.